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Day 22 of Decembermeme!
Dec. 29th, 2013 11:53 amToday's topic: Talk about the direction you see fandom going in (livejournal to tumblr, etc) and if it's a good or bad thing!
I think fandom has, over the past decade, gone all over the place. Yes, tumblr is the new thing and I see it continuing to be popular because it is a very easy way to share fandom. It's easy to control which fandoms you see, but also easy to get exposed to new ones. However, it is not the ideal platform for truly getting to know people. It's not really meant for communication, though. That's why other things in fandom persist.
Livejournal will continue to be something of a fixture just because there are a lot of people who have been there long enough that they don't want to move. However, Dreamwidth seems to be slowly gaining more hold for things like kink memes because of the longer commentboxes, and fandom will always go where the porn is.
Facebook commands a portion of the fandom, too, though it's a relatively tiny one. And things like Yahoo! Groups continue to hold on, though they don't have nearly the importance they once had.
Pretty much gone are the days of people making their own little angelfire/geocities/tripod/etc. website so share their fandom love. That's pretty well gone. You want to post fic? That's what AO3/ff.n are for. Want to post art? Deviantart or pixiv or tumblr. Meta? Tumblr or a journal site. Each site has pluses and minuses and they cause different people to get involved with different things.
It's a bad thing that fandom doesn't cluster like it used to where you could have a thriving community about just about anything. But it's a good thing that is now exists across so many sites so that there's a better chance of catching someone on the day their shields are down so they might try a little of Fandom X. It allows the people who aren't rabid fans to still enjoy the fandom experience without getting burnt out on it, I guess?
I do, to a point, like that fandom has done this. It means that I can experience fandom in a lot of different ways with a lot of different people. However, it also means that I don't get as close to people I meet in fandoms now. Those circumstances tend to be the exception rather than the rule now. But, as I've never been the type to go out of my way to collect friends, I'm still pretty satisfied with the friends I've got.
(If you'd like to make a suggestion on something for me to post a day this month, add it as a comment here. I think I just have one more?)
I think fandom has, over the past decade, gone all over the place. Yes, tumblr is the new thing and I see it continuing to be popular because it is a very easy way to share fandom. It's easy to control which fandoms you see, but also easy to get exposed to new ones. However, it is not the ideal platform for truly getting to know people. It's not really meant for communication, though. That's why other things in fandom persist.
Livejournal will continue to be something of a fixture just because there are a lot of people who have been there long enough that they don't want to move. However, Dreamwidth seems to be slowly gaining more hold for things like kink memes because of the longer commentboxes, and fandom will always go where the porn is.
Facebook commands a portion of the fandom, too, though it's a relatively tiny one. And things like Yahoo! Groups continue to hold on, though they don't have nearly the importance they once had.
Pretty much gone are the days of people making their own little angelfire/geocities/tripod/etc. website so share their fandom love. That's pretty well gone. You want to post fic? That's what AO3/ff.n are for. Want to post art? Deviantart or pixiv or tumblr. Meta? Tumblr or a journal site. Each site has pluses and minuses and they cause different people to get involved with different things.
It's a bad thing that fandom doesn't cluster like it used to where you could have a thriving community about just about anything. But it's a good thing that is now exists across so many sites so that there's a better chance of catching someone on the day their shields are down so they might try a little of Fandom X. It allows the people who aren't rabid fans to still enjoy the fandom experience without getting burnt out on it, I guess?
I do, to a point, like that fandom has done this. It means that I can experience fandom in a lot of different ways with a lot of different people. However, it also means that I don't get as close to people I meet in fandoms now. Those circumstances tend to be the exception rather than the rule now. But, as I've never been the type to go out of my way to collect friends, I'm still pretty satisfied with the friends I've got.
(If you'd like to make a suggestion on something for me to post a day this month, add it as a comment here. I think I just have one more?)
